The Killing Ground by Jack Higgins Page A

Ferguson.
    “Of course. We’ve got a Gulfstream these days. The boys will have to get rid of the RAF rondels. We’ll call it . . . a United Nations Ocean Survey. That sounds good.”
    “Absolutely. So . . . the reason your people are going there. What is it this time?”
    “Come by my flat and I’ll fill you in.”
    Stone hung up and checked himself in the wardrobe mirror. The man who looked out at him was in his sixties, tanned, white-bearded, wearing a khaki bush jacket, khaki shirt and slacks and a crumpled bush hat. He produced a pair of dark Ray-Ban sunglasses.
    “That’s better,” he said. “Not exactly Indiana Jones, but not bad. Here we go again then.”
    He opened the door to his rooms, got a bag in each hand and left.
    R O P E R H A D H A D A F E W P R O B L E M S running to earth the details of the charter plane flying from Kuwait with Hussein and party. The American, Grant, found himself visited by a Captain Jackson of Military Intelligence at the British Embassy, who was delighted to do Charles 90

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    Ferguson the favor. The fact that just on the corner of the hangar was a security camera, which on inspection proved to have taken several photos of the entire party, brought Jackson’s visit to a more than satisfactory conclusion. In no time at all, everyone interested was able to examine them as much as they liked.
    “The photos of Hussein Rashid are a real bonus,” Ferguson said.
    “What do you think of the girl?” Roper asked.
    “Typical of these cases, making the girl dress in that way. What about you?”
    Roper poured a whiskey. “She has a calm sort of face, a face that doesn’t give a great deal away.”
    “I’m not sure it resembles the father to any great degree.”
    At that moment, Caspar Rashid hurried in with Sergeant Doyle.
    “What’s all this about photos?”
    “Here they are,” Roper told him. “Fresh in from our contact in Kuwait.”
    Caspar examined them carefully, shuffling the photos several times.
    Finally, he said, “It’s amazing to actually have photos taken such a short time ago.”
    “How do you think she looks?” Ferguson asked.
    “I don’t know, I really don’t. I know I might sound strange saying this, but it’s the clothes she’s wearing. They change her personality so much, or so it seems. Can my wife see these?”
    “Good heavens, yes. It’s a real stroke of luck getting such excellent photos of Hussein and his merry men.”
    Caspar examined a couple of them more closely. “You know, I barely recognize him. It’s been several years, and then there were those six months in that American prison. I recall him as a very nice boy when young.”
    Dillon, who had come in quietly and was looking at the photos, said,
    “People change and circumstances change them even more. His mother and father killed in a bombing raid, that six months in jail. It must have

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    seemed cruel and heartless.” He helped himself to a shot of Roper’s whiskey. “God knows, I had enough experience in Ireland during the Troubles to see how people can change fundamentally.”
    “Well, you would know, Sean,” Roper said. “This Hussein, though, he’s no ordinary one. Judging by his score, he’s almost as good as you.”
    There was a heavy silence, for there was not much left for anyone else to say.
    S A R A , E N G R O S S E D W I T H H E R M A P R E A D I N G and following the red line, saw the palm trees and the buildings that were St. Anthony’s Hospice before anybody else. She pointed and called out, and Jasmine and the boys stood up and crowded to the windows to see. Hussein went down lower and lower to no more than two thousand feet.
    He circled. There was a parapet, several monks on it in black hats and black robes. They waved. Hussein waggled his wings and turned south.
    It was perhaps ten minutes later that their luck ran out. Quite suddenly, smoke, black and oily, started to come out of the port engine.